


Purple Rain

by a_nonny_moose



Series: My AU [86]
Category: Markiplier Egos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 14:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12323214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nonny_moose/pseuds/a_nonny_moose
Summary: It's happening.





	Purple Rain

I think that Bim would be the first to fade. 

He faded so quickly, the first time. It was painless, and he had so little to leave behind. But Bim is– was– one of those characters that’s too easily forgettable, that blends into the background after a while. That was what Wilford had spent years drilling into him, anyway. 

It’s a wintry evening, two, almost three years after Mark abandons the channel for good. He visited them often, at first. A smile and a light around the otherwise bare office, but avoiding Dark’s room entirely. Avoiding their eyes, entirely. 

He visited less and less. He had a family, now. Kids. A real life, away from the imaginary friends that had got him to where he was in the first place. And slowly, slowly, the Egos felt their power start to fade. 

It hits Bim in the chest, the absence of power, and he has to sit down. Wilford is working feverishly, what’s left of his aura practically leaking through his eyes. He has to save them, if all Dark’s going to do is sit in his office and sulk. He has to make Warfstache TV happen. 

“Will,” Bim gasps, watching his fingers shake, “Will, it’s… it’s happening.”  


Wilford doesn’t react, at first, denial hitting him in the face. “You’re fine, Trimmer,” he growls, not even looking up from the backdrop he’s rigging.

Bim feels a shudder go through him, feels himself grow lighter. “No, no, it’s happening.” 

And the genuine fear in his voice forces Wilford to turn, finally, watching Bim pale. “Fuck.”

Wilford pulls Bim to his feet, half-supporting his weight, and Bim is almost frail in his arms. Wilford is angry, and it shows in the sparks flying out of his ears, in his too-tight grip on Bim’s arm. “It is _not_  happening.” In a nauseating swirl of smoke, Wilford whisks the two of them into the Doctor’s clinic. 

Dr. Iplier knows, and Wilford knows, and Dr. Iplier _knows_  that Wilford knows. All he can do is make Bim comfortable, he says, but fretting over him like a mother hen nonetheless. 

The moment Bim is warm under the covers, hands fisted against the sheets, Wilford pulls Dr. Iplier aside. “This is _not_  happening,” Wilford says again, almost begging. “You can bring him back. You can bring all of us back.”

Dr. Iplier can only shake his head, not even daring to glance above Wilford’s head at the counter, frozen in time. Not daring to look over at Bim’s counter, numbered in hours instead of years. “Even I can’t do that much, Will.”

Wilford sweeps out, muttering darkly, and all the Doctor can do is stay by Bim’s side as he grows steadily more translucent. 

No one really knows where Wilford’s gone. Dark has some idea, as he always does, but no one has dared to knock on Dark’s door in months. The Doctor is fairly sure that he’s never coming back. 

Bim’s last hours come in the middle of the night, December wind rattling the windows of the clinic. Dr. Iplier glares at the half-open window, the one that’s never shut all the way, and mutters something about needing to fix it. He’d been needing to fix it for years, now. Bim wasn’t sure that it mattered, anyway. 

He was so cold.

Dr. Iplier hurries out of the room for a moment to get more blankets, to bring Bim some water, and Wilford steps into the room with a curl of smoke. Not his usual dramatic, bright-pink fog, but something muted, practically gray. 

“Didn’t think I’d see you,” Bim manages, struggling upright. Even in these last minutes, painfully aware that it was dangerous to be prone in Wilford’s presence. Even now, struggling to smile. 

Wilford was quiet, dropping into the nearest chair, stiff-backed. 

Bim takes a deep breath, not wanting to be the first to break the silence. He doesn’t know _why_  Wilford is here, but he has a hunch. 

Bim thinks he’s going to die in silence when Wilford speaks, voice rough, as if he hasn’t used it since he left the clinic. 

“You’re fading.” He states the obvious, like the knolling of a bell, eyes on his hands.   


Bim laughs a little. He’s had the time to think this over, after all. He’s passed trying to convince himself that the Doctor could save him, passed the stage of being sad about it. “Yeah,” he says, voice faint. “I am.”

The acknowledgement, the acceptance, is enough to force Wilford to ball his hands into fists, shaking with the effort. He doesn’t speak again, but sniffles loudly. 

Bim can’t stand the quiet. He was made to be loud, projecting, dammit, and he wasn’t about to leave this world in pin-drop silence.

“It’s funny, y’know, Will?” he says, staring up at the ceiling, watching Wilford look sharply up at him, eyes wide. “It’s funny,” he says again, and it hurts to speak. “Last time, in the old house, you were right there next to me. Here we are again, huh?” Bim doesn’t know what he’s saying, only that he’s rambling to fill the air with something other than fear.   


Wilford could only sit, and only listen. 

Bim sighs, closing his eyes, feeling something heavy settle on his chest. He can see through his own eyelids. This had been so easy, the first time. How lucky he was to make something that made fading so hard. “Maybe you’ll get Warfie TV running without me, right? Maybe I’ll come back.” But he knows it’s an empty hope. “After all, what’re you going to do without someone to boss around?”

Wilford’s breath catches in his throat at that. Bim’s last words, and he’s mocking him.

“Hey, maybe Dark will stick around, and you can get him into some costumes!” Everything he says is falling flat, his breath shallow in his chest. Bim blinks up at the roof, feeling tears, wet, like purple rain.   


Wilford reaches out, a stroke of tenderness, eyes fixed earnestly on Bim. He can’t save him. No one can save him. Wilford can only sit and listen, but maybe there’s some kind of rescue in that.

Bim lets out his last ripples of power, radiating throughout the room, and Wilford feels it jerk, familiar, behind his stomach. Bim is too weak to send Will tumbling head over heels, even if he wanted to. Wilford wanted to. 

Bim is still rambling, getting fainter and fainter. “Don’t forget to render out that one project, it’s still on my hard drive; and don’t give Doc such a hard time, okay? And–”

Bim is probably still talking, but Wilford can’t hear him anymore over the roar of thunder in his ears. Wilford doesn’t know when he starts talking, but once he starts saying what he’s thinking out loud, he can’t stop. 

Bim’s last words are drowned in Wilford’s half-whispered apologies, and the outpour of words doesn’t stop until the Doctor lays a hand on Wilford’s shoulder, and the bed is empty in front of them. Even then, the rain doesn’t stop. 

I think that Wilford would lock the studio and bury the key somewhere that he can’t see, a purple ribbon tied to a stone, sunk to the depths of the ocean. He watches the waves recede in front of him. 

I think that Wilford would speak in short, soft words, acutely aware that each one could be the last that they hear. He can feel the calm before the storm.

I think that Wilford would send bullet after bullet and blade after blade through the walls of the office, numb, wishing to feel, waiting for the tsunami to hit.

The ocean at his feet pulls back and back and back, the waters he once thought were limitless now leaving him in a desert. And Wilford waits. He waits for the purple to come rushing back, forgiving, laughing, dancing. He waits for something, for anything. For the opportunity to apologize and know that Bim is listening, and know that he’s not talking to a hospital bed already gone cold. 

Wilford waits, but nothing ever comes. 

 __I never meant to cause you any sorrow  
I never meant to cause you any pain  
I only wanted one time to see you laughing  
I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain


End file.
